It seems like the past year or two has been filled with whispers of Facebook getting in on the search game somehow. Nothing major has come from these whispers, but they're there none-the-less. We can add yet another whisper to the list, by way of a patent description.

Here's the official description of the patent:

Search results, including sponsored links and algorithmic search results, are generated in response to a query, and are marked based on frequency of clicks on the search results by members of social network who are within a predetermined degree of separation from the member who submitted the query. The markers are visual tags and comprise either a text string or an image.

It sounds to me as though Facebook is going to use their 'Like' system to create an algorithm. So that when a user goes to search for something the sytem will use likes to generate results. I could be completely off base, but that is what I took from the techno-jumbo from the patent.

One company who is more than likely looking intently at Facebook's plans is Google. The company has tried so many strategies to burst onto the social scene, all of them being flatout failures or no where nearing the level Facebook is at.

It should be noted that Facebook has registered search related patents before, so this one is nothing new. It does show they're interested enough to at least go through the process of applying for a patent. Will the patent come into fruition? That's the real question on most peoples' minds.

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I'm actually not sure what round it is, but just yesterday we found out there was a patent Facebook applied for related to Social Search (and it's related networks) which some say might pose a threat to Google's search dominance - especially in the social sphere but today, there's more news that Facebook has asked Adsense users to stop using Adsense in their Facebook applications and instead use an approved ad network.

I'm pretty sure Google will be able to handle their own from a few more years or decades but it looks like there's a high chance Facebook could soon become the King of search at least from a social standpoint, The only problem is that there's almost no distinction between regular and social search (results,groups) anymore - they go hand in hand.

It really looks like Google is going to have to give in, maybe a bend a little especially if it wants to keep tapping into, with it's ad platform, the vast userbase Facebook offers.

This is a really useful hack or addition to IE's right-click context menu if certain webpages aren't working or displaying properly in IE, or if you just want to quickly and easily view the page or any link in another browser with a simple right-click.

FireFox example:

Paste this into a text file, call it fopen.html, save it with the .html extension...

We have a WordPress website with a mobile sniffer. I thought it was just displaying a different theme, and technically it is but the urls have a little bit added to them. I've noticed that currently Google is indexed both copies of all pages.

I'm wanting to avoid a duplicate content penalty, so I guess the obvious answer is to block the pages w/ robots. But then I'm thinking, is Google indexing these pages specifically for Mobile search?

Foursquare is really putting pressure on other location-based services. The startup knows that the space is competitive but is working to maintain its leadership role by rolling out compelling products. At SXSW, Foursquare made several product announcements that showed it is serious about location.